As communications technology continues to advance, methods of communication between businesses and their customers are becoming increasingly diverse. Examples of this diversity are prevalent in routine business transactions. Businesses and customers routinely communicate using facsimile transmissions and e-mail over such diverse communication channels including phone lines, the internet, and a company's local intranet. To better serve their customers, businesses must find new ways to communicate with their customers that take full advantage of the diversity of telecommunications technology available.
This is especially vital in the call center environment where the typical paradigm has been the use of the telephone communication. While telephone communication is the prevalent form of the customer communication in this environment, the increasing popularity of the internet and the increasing use of facsimile (fax) transmission to communicate indicates that call centers should enhance their processing capabilities to deal effectively with the new technologies.
Moreover, call centers have typically been concerned with receiving calls. That is, the agents in the call centers are not typically set up to perform outbound calling. This limitation can be critical where callers are disconnected, hang up, or are otherwise not serviced by an agent. In such a case it would be beneficial to have a call center environment that facilitates outbound calling so that agents can reach potential customers, that would otherwise be lost.